John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford is an American character actor, singer, and musician. At age 12, Crawford rose to fame for playing Mark McCain, the son of Lucas McCain, in the popular ABC western series, The Rifleman, which originally aired from 1958 to 1963. Crawford first pe...
John Ernest Crawford , John Ernest "Johnny" Crawford , John E. Crawford , Johnnie Crawford , John Crawford , Johnny
Awards
Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject (1970)
Albums
The Best of Johnny Crawford, Best of Johnny Crawford
Nominations
Emmy Awards (1959),
Movies
“The Rifleman” (1958-1963), "Indian Paint" (1965), “Macbeth” (1981), “The All American Cowboy” (1985), “William Tell” (1987-1988), “Rupert Patterson Wants to be a Super Hero” (1997), “The Thirteenth Floor” (1999)
TV Shows
Art Directors Guild Awards shows, The Donna Reed Show, "A Very Bright Boy" (1961), "The Mickey Mouse Club" (1955-1959)
Star Sign
Aries
#
Quote
1
[Of Chuck Connors] Well, it was a great childhood, and he was bigger-than-life, a wonderful guy, very intelligent, and a big influence on me, and a great supporter, too. He was always interested in what I was doing and ready to give me advice or help me and he would call me out of the blue, and I really miss him. He left us in '92, and it's still a shock to me to think that he's not around because he had so much energy, and loved life and loved people, and he was "The Rifleman". He was that and a lot more.
2
[on his on- and off-screen chemistry with Chuck Connors, who played Lucas McCain on The Rifleman (1958)] He was my hero. I enjoyed being with him. He wasn't as stern as he was on camera. He was like a kid around me.
3
[comparing his character on The Rifleman (1958) to his real-life role as a bandleader] The way I look at it, Mark McCain could have grown up to lead dance bands in the 1920s and '30s. As a young man who sang and played the guitar in two episodes, he might have made his way to Los Angeles, where there was lots of work for musicians in the early 1900s. By 1931, when he would have been the same age that I am now, he might have been leading his own band. I like to think he would have.
4
I always say that life is not easy for anybody. People hear about the young actors who have a rough life, but there are plenty of other kids who aren't actors who have a rough time, too, and I don't know if the ratio is any different.
5
[why he thinks his Mark McCain character on The Rifleman (1958) became popular with audiences] What boy wouldn't love dressing up as a cowboy and getting paid for it! It was hard work, and I took it very seriously as an actor, but I was living in a dream.
6
[on his orchestrated band] It's a unique, romantic sound, and people love to hear it. It takes people back to an older America and a simpler, more elegant time. It's a sound I really love, and I find that once people get a chance to hear it live, in all its glory, that they love it, too.
7
[about a concert given by his band] There were only about 50 people there, and they were all enjoying the band, and almost all were dancing. One fellow was standing off to the side watching for the longest time; it was Dustin Hoffman. He loved it. He said it reminded him of when he was a little boy and his parents took him to see Ted Lewis. Martin Short was a riot. He said, "I wanna sing with Johnny Crawford!".
#
Fact
1
Credits Chuck Connors as his favorite acting mentor/best friend.
His acting mentor and former series' lead, Chuck Connors, died on November 10, 1992, at age 71.
5
While serving in the Army in the late 1960s, he appeared in a number of period training films remembered by veterans of the times.
6
In 2006 he directed a live orchestra using authentic period orchestrations for the premiere screening of the newly restored silent version of Chicago (1927) at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences in Los Angeles.
7
Released August 5, Sweepin' the Clouds Away is the first album offered by Johnny Crawford And His Orchestra. It features fifteen authentic dance band orchestrations from the 1920s and 1930s, recorded during live performances at the L.A. County Museum of Art and in the historic Gold Room of the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel. Vocals by Crawford. Music by Jerome Kern, 'Richard Rodgers', 'Harry Warren', Nacio Herb Brown, Duke Ellington and other music icons of that dance band era. [August 2008]
8
He was a guest at the 2012 Memphis Film Festival's "A Gathering of Guns 4: A TV Western Reunion" at the Whispering Woods Hotel and Conference Center in Olive Branch, Mississippi.
He has been a compulsive trick roper ever since Montie Montana got him spinning a "flat loop" in the very early days of The Rifleman (1958), and horse wrangler Buster Trow taught him the "butterfly." After his "The Rifleman" days Johnny was coached by Gene McLaughlin for many years.
11
Is of Russian, German, English and Irish ancestry.
12
A former member of the PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) and the AJRA (American Junior Rodeo Association), he competed frequently at rodeos throughout the country during the 1960s and early 1970s.
13
His paternal grandfather, Robert "Bobby" Crawford (1889-1941), was a horse jockey from Chicago who changed his occupation to song "plugger" and became a very successful music publisher as the founder of De Sylva, Brown & Henderson and Crawford Music Corp.
14
His maternal grandfather, Belgian violinist Alfred Megerlin (1880-1941), was concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic (1918-22), the Minneapolis Symphony (1923-26) and The Los Angeles Philharmonic (1927-29).
15
Crawford had a key role in the early career of Victoria Jackson of Saturday Night Live (1975) fame. In 1980, she was a college student in Birmingham, Alabama, earning credit doing flip-flops, as a member of the chorus, in a summer stock production of "Meet Me in St. Louis", featuring Crawford. He presented her with a one-way plane ticket and encouraged her to pursue a career in Hollywood. This led to her 22 appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), before she was cast as a regular on Saturday Night Live (1975).
16
Continued performing in theater and nightclubs after his early TV and pop-music heydays.
17
Most famous for portraying Chuck Connors' sensitive young son, Mark McCain, on the TV series The Rifleman (1958).
18
With five Top 40 hits in the 1960s, Crawford's recording of "Cindy's Birthday" peaked at #8 on Billboard's Top 40 in 1962.
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor. Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor. Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor. Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor. Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor. Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor.
Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor.
Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor.
Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor.
Ed/68/Galveston area…………….
I’m watching The Rifleman now. I watch those episodes every Saturday morning. As a young boy, he was one great actor….along w/ Lucas! I read his net worth was ONLY a Million…..he deserves a lot more. God Bless ya Johnny and thanx for being a great actor.
Ed/68/Galveston area…………….